Cultural Institutions May Suffer if L.A. Breaks Up, Official Says

The proposed breakup of Los Angeles could threaten its status as a cultural capital, making it more difficult to sustain a world-class opera, symphony and museums, a city official said Tuesday during a hearing on secession.

Cultural Affairs Department officials said breaking up the city could drain private and public resources from such organizations as the L.A. Opera and L.A. Philharmonic, especially if the San Fernando Valley tries to replicate cultural institutions that exist in Los Angeles.

“Large cities tend to have certain kinds of world-class ensembles which small communities, as fine as they are, cannot support, or find more difficult to support,” said Rodney Punt, the department’s director of administration.

Punt told a group of consultants studying cityhood for the San Fernando Valley and Harbor area that if the new cities have competing cultural institutions, it could take support away from Los Angeles organizations.

He said the Valley, with its 1.3 million residents, might have trouble re-creating and sustaining major arts organizations if it breaks away to become a municipality, roughly the size of San Diego. “They have trouble supporting some of their major institutions in San Diego,” Punt said.

Cultural Affairs General Manager Adolfo Nodal--who is leaving his job in December--downplayed the warnings of his staff, saying it is unlikely that secession would result in great harm to Los Angeles’ arts organizations. There are few Valley donors to those institutions anyway, he said.

Valley residents would still go to the Hollywood Bowl, to the opera and to established museums in Los Angeles, predicted Jeff Brain, president of the secession group Valley VOTE.

“The priority for people in the Valley is they want more police, cleaner parks, libraries open longer,” Brain said. “I think it would be some time before the Valley would seek to compete with cultural institutions.”

Secessionists say the Valley does not get its share of city money, Brain said.

A lack of large theaters and other facilities has hindered efforts to funnel arts grants to the Valley, for example, although efforts are improving.

The amount of city arts grants going to Valley groups has increased from 2% to 7% in recent years, according to Roella Hseih Louie, of the Cultural Affairs Department.

Louie said during Tuesday’s hearing that much of the cultural affairs budget comes from hotel taxes. Because most of the city’s hotels are outside the Valley, she said, there could be less revenue available for the arts if it were a separate municipality.

The hearing Tuesday was one of a series being held by consultants for the Local Agency Formation Commission on the question of whether secession would harm Los Angeles or the communities breaking away.

Based on the outcome of the study, the commission could put Valley and Harbor cityhood proposals before voters in November 2002.